This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

I've never hurt my wife on purpose. There are too many reasons not to, the first being that I love her. Yeah, even when I'm so mad at her that it feels like my head will implode.

Note: You should worry about that. My head contains so much vacuum that if it imploded, it would probably drag most of the Salt Lake Valley into it. And it's the last place you want to be.

I didn't hit her, although I do and have hit women who assaulted me. As a cop, I punched a basement monster right out of her slippers when she tried sticking a barbecue fork in me at a domestic violence call. And I hit a woman who wouldn't stop waving a 9mm handgun (later found to be unloaded) around because she didn't want to go to jail for abusing her kids.

For you haters out there, I know it's socially fashionable not to hit women under any circumstance. It's also bullshit.

Section 11, Sub-Chapter 126, Line 18 of Nature's "Code of Human Self Preservation for the Simpleminded" clearly states, "Never pick, pursue or otherwise instigate a physical conflict you have no chance of winning."

Back to hurting my wife. I've never done it on purpose, but I have done it. The first time was right after she agreed to marry me. I picked her up in my arms and twirled her around. My foot slipped and we fell on the sidewalk. I hurt her elbow with my face.

There've been other times, including 390-plus years of tickle, water, pillow, snowball and Nerf bat fights. Having two older brothers prepared her well for these. When she got tired of fighting, or I started to win, she would punch me in the brachial plexus of my shoulders, causing what is commonly known as a "dead arm."

At first, I laughed because I'm a troll. You have to punch extra hard to really hurt a troll. She couldn't. But then I broke my left shoulder parachuting. She waited until I was fully healed and then started hitting me there again. This time it hurt a whole screaming lot. I got even, though. She had three babies.

All of that is normal relationship stuff. But last week, I slashed the love of my life with a box cutter. Five stitches worth. She deserved it. She came at me with a mop.

Seriously, we were trying to open a box of OxiClean from Costco. Two factors played into the cutting, the first of which is that OxiClean uses half a pound of glue to make sure each box remains sealed during handling.

Second, and probably most contributory, my wife and I are old. She has osteoarthritis in her hands, and I have an index fingernail split all the way to the quick, and two fingers that haven't worked properly since I broke them years ago.

A box cutter had to serve. In the middle of slicing through the cardboard, my wife reached in to help just as the blade whipped free. I caught her right at the base of her left thumb.

There was a lot of blood, which she isn't accustomed to. She kept going limp as the blood dripped all over the counter and floor. I practically had to carry her to the car for the trip to the emergency room.

I was mortified and have felt guilty ever since. I kept apologizing until she became annoyed and demanded I stop. She says it was an accident, and that she should have expected it.

Me: "Well, box cutters are dangerous when not handled properly."

Her: "Not as dangerous as loving someone like you."

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.